Brazil is awesome. The 20+ hour itinerary wasn't. I'm not going to complain about that stuff though. The place I'm staying in is a decent shared accomodation type house with like 10 of us from the states, canada, UK, etc. I'm in a bunk bed until I get ahold of my own room in a month or so. The weather is nice but not too hot. It's their winter, which basically means everyday is like a nice day in Chilliwack.

We headed down to an outdoor bar thing around 2:30 and Rio de Janeiro basically shut the **** down so that everyone could watch the soccer game. During the soccer today they were so ******* enthusiastic and excitable, it's really charming. People are super friendly. A dude I was sitting next to on the plane turned out to be a pretty high ranking jiu jitsu guy and had a tattoo on his arm of the gym I'm headed to...seemed kind of fateful. I'll catch up with him later, he says he's going to show me a bit of the Brazil experience in a few different senses.

The women are definitely hotter than average and usually just my type =). I met this girl from Australia and her Brazilian friend sitting in the airport so I'll see if they'll take me out to see Rio at some point. I've already had a few confusing language barrier moments. Even in Southeast Asia I could pretty much get by entirely on English, but I'm going to have to learn a few things out here. Going to grab some groceries and do my first day of training tomorrow.

That must be awesome, travelling the world to get the best training, I'v been training in vale tudo now for about 6 months, and would love to go to tiger muay thai... and I might actually go because it works out quite cheap, then the next place I would go would be to brazil...I Read your hole log in a day of having a stomach bug... your a log is a huge motivation and a good read, congratulations on getting where you have, I hope to see you on tv soon!

Slept hardcore and then hit up some groceries. That was a bit more challenging than at home but I picked up a decent amount of supplies.

First training session! I did the gringo BJJ class first. There was maybe 10 of us. A black, brown, few purples, few blues, two whites. Gerbil taught the class and his teaching skills we obvious right away. Did two half guard passes. Start with pushing their neck and side down, wrap hands around their legs gripping hand around wrist. Sprawl out legs and keep pelvis as flat as you can. If necessary might have to inch your body down "caterpillar" to open their legs. One hand grabs your own pant leg to keep their legs trapped. Your bottom knee comes in under and pulls their lower body onto you, free hand reaching over so you're facing away. Then transition as you would into side control. Other one starts from the sprawl out, then you reach around their legs with one hand and grip their pant leg, straightening out your arm as you walk your body over and around their legs, then reach behind their head to finish in their side control. From their we underhooked their far arm and walk their shoulder up, sneaking in a knee on belly. Gerbil emphasized the importance of cupping their hip with my foot. Then just slide into mount and americana.

In rolling my first round was with a blue that I had a good 40 pounds on. He had better technique than me and neutralized my guard and kept me off his back...but with a bit of muscle I managed to sweep him and keep mount. From there I tried a variety of finishes but didn't land any. Next round was with Gerbil and he was completely dominated me but wasn't a jerk about it. His hip bump sweep rocked me a few times and he armbarred me at least twice. Not sure what else he got with me. Next was a purple that I pulled guard on and we jumped around positionally for awhile. He had wicked technique, half guard battled a bit, he took my back. Finished me with some sort collar choke involving a leg from his guard after I turned in. Good rolls, I was more exhausted than usual but it felt good to get back in there again. I'll do the same class tomorrow and attempt the Brazilian class a few hours later if I'm feeling good.

That must be awesome, travelling the world to get the best training, I'v been training in vale tudo now for about 6 months, and would love to go to tiger muay thai... and I might actually go because it works out quite cheap, then the next place I would go would be to brazil...I Read your hole log in a day of having a stomach bug... your a log is a huge motivation and a good read, congratulations on getting where you have, I hope to see you on tv soon!

Thanks for the support man. Where do you live now? Best of luck with your journey.

Thanks for the support man. Where do you live now? Best of luck with your journey.

Well I live in the uk, and have always been fighting... 2 years of boxing and 1 year of kick boxing classes, never got fighting though, then I started jitsu to get into mma... did about 6 months of that, then discovered a vale tudo club had opened up to new members. I started that about 5 months ago, so everything came together and I have have 2 semi pro bouts now and I am at 2-0... If you get a chance too you definatly want to try vale tudo as a class, it pulls together wrestling, boxing, bjj, muay thai and ground and pound as a martial art, the ultimate cage fighters art!! Good luck dude hope you have fun!

I missed today's gringo class, I went for a walk to find an ATM to pay my gym fees and it ended up taking a little longer than I anticipated.

Did my first Brazilian class. Gerbil lead the warm up which was typical of most BJJ classes, a variety of types of movement in a circle, then some shrimping and other related stuff, then a bit of abs.

Then we did some warm up takedowns. I wasn't sure what the **** was going on at first and looked like an idiot. We were just doing 20 reps of starting whatever take down. I looked like a dumbass because my takedowns never involve throws. Oh well.

So that was pretty much the extent of the class, the rest was all rolling. As I understand it that's pretty typical of the Brazilian classes- warmup, very small amount of technique, and then all rolling.

My first roll was with a purple belt my size that, I swear to god, looked like Jacare. He was extremely good and was very dominant, finishing me with two armbars. He was a friendly dominant though, which I was happy to see, I wasn't sure how gringos were going to be treated out here. Anyways, after trying to survive for 5 minutes I got in with a blue belt that was smaller than me. I swept him at least twice and held mount for much of the round, fighting for an ezekiel, americana, or arm triangle while trying to keep position. I eventually switched to...what's it called...s-mount? I forget. Anyways I switched my mount style and went for the armbar, he rolled with me and stacked me, I swept at the leg and rolled him down and finished the armbar. The rest of the round went the same with me just sinking in an armbar by the end of the round. Third round I had another blue who was a stalemate for much of the match, we spent alot of time with me in half guard trying to get through to little avail. He ended up catching me with an armbar but both hands were trapped, so I stomped my foot to tap. Haha. I didn't know how to say tap in portugese. Anyways he let it go luckily. I spent a second trying to get him to tell me how to say 'tap' in portugese. He looked apologetic like I was mad or something but I totally wasn't. Anyways, it's pado or pao, or something along those lines.

The Brazilian class is real cool. I met Gordo today. He's a very stoic and slightly intimidating fellow who watches quietly from the side of class. He kind of reminds me of the bad guy in the Mummy. Sometimes you don't know what the **** Gordo is saying but you figure it out as you go and sort of keep your head down and do what everyone else is doing. Anyways, something different about the classes out here - the highest belt chooses the matchups for every roll. So your opponents are literally handpicked for you every time. I like this method because it makes you feel like he's paying attention to what you're doing, it gives you decent matchups, and it avoids the whole awkward 30 seconds between rounds where you have to look around the room and find eye contact with a guy and do the whole "You? Me? Yeah."

My ear is starting to get sore again so I got some headgear to wear from now on. God, headgear is dorky. Oh well.

The house is real cool and a fun group of people. As usual from what I've seen in my travels, the UK guys are the funniest and most outrageous guys. Gerbil is kind of like the unspoken leader of the house and is a real charismatic, fun guy around. In case you don't know who Gerbil is, this his blog that lead me to exactly where I am today. Everyone's out to go get a late night snack at one of the local bakerys where there's a delicious variety of breads that you pick meat and cheese for them to melt together. I'm sticking to my groceries tonight, so here I am with you guys. I bought some acai concentrate to add to my water. This stuff is delicious, I'll have to try some fresh stuff though. One thing that's kind of went haywire today is our water isn't working on one side of the house. My gi is beyond stinky and there's little hope that it's going to get cleaned today. I'll probably be picking up another one tomorrow, or doing the no-gi until Dennis brings it for me.